OpenOffice proposed as Apache project

Oracle is to propose that OpenOffice.org becomes an Apache Software Foundation (ASF) project and enters the Apache incubation process. The proposal comes six weeks after Oracle abandoned commercial development of OpenOffice and said it was looking for a way to have the office suite managed by the community. Luke Kowalski, vice president of Oracle’s Corporate Architecture Group said “Donating OpenOffice.org to Apache gives this popular consumer software a mature, open, and well established infrastructure to continue well into the future”.

Projects do not immediately become Apache top-level projects though. The incubation process allows the newly arrived project to work with mentors at the ASF and move towards operating in “The Apache Way”, synchronising with the licensing practices, meritocratic governance and all the other elements of how Apache projects work.